Creating groups in your Moodle course

Introduction
A teacher can organise course participants into groups within the course or within particular activities. Activities
that have groups enabled allow users to filter contributions by group.

For example, enabling either separate or visible groups for each different teacher in a course for a specific
assignment activity allows each teacher to filter the student submissions for that activity to see only those from
their own specific group of students.

Using groups with discussion forums allows teachers to restrict interaction between students. Separate groups
mean only students in the same group can see and participate in discussions within a particular forum. Visible
groups allow students to see other group's discussions, but only participate in their own group's discussions.

Group levels
A group can be used on two levels:

1. Course level - The group mode defined at the course level is the default mode for all activities defined
within that course. This is determined in the course settings.

2. Activity level - Each activity that supports groups can also have its own group mode defined. If the course
setting Force group mode is set to "Yes" then the option to define the group mode for individual
activities is not available. If it is set to "No", then the teacher may change the group mode.

Group modes
There are three group modes you will be able to see in the drop-downs in the above locations:

1. No groups: There are no sub groups, everyone is part of one big community
2. Separate groups: Each group can only see their own group, others are invisible.
3. Visible groups: Each group works in their own group, but can also see other groups.
(The other groups' work is read-only.)

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Creating a group
To create a group:

1. Click the Groups link in the course administration block.

2. On your course’s Groups management page, click on the Create group button.

3. On the Create group page, type in a Group name and optional description and picture (which will be
displayed on the Participants page and next to forum posts). Leave the Enrolment key blank.
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4. Click the Save changes button.
5. Back on the Groups administration page, select the group to which you want to add Participants, then
click the Add/remove users button.

6. In the Potential members list, select the users you want to add to the group. Multiple users may be
selected using the Crtl key on your keyboard. You can add students or teachers to your group, but they
must be Participants in your course before you can add them.
7. Click the Add button to add the selected users to the group.
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 8. The selected group will now show the existing members in that group.

Groups FAQ
How do I assign a teacher to a group? Can a teacher be in more than one group?
You can assign a teacher to a group in exactly the same way that you assign a student to a group.

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Can a student be a member of more than one group?
Yes, a student can be in more than one group.

Is it possible to view all the groups in a course as a list to print out?

The groups overview page provides a table listing groups, group members and a user count.

When I try to add a student, they are always added to the first group, whichever group I select?
Make sure that the students name does not include any punctuation. There is also a workaround – give each
group a temporary name at the start of the alphabet, put your students in the group and then rename the group.

How can I delete a group?

After clicking, Groups in the course administration block,

1. Select the group that you want to delete.

2. Click "Show members for group." (Then the "Delete selected group" button will become active.)
3. Now you can click the "Delete selected group" button

Which activities do NOT support groups?

All native Moodle activity types support the use of groups apart from Glossary, Lesson, and SCORM.

How do I post a message in a forum that only one group can see?
Before you click Add a new topic, you need to choose the group from the Separate groups drop-down menu at
the top left.

As a teacher I want to put the same post in each group's forum with students able to reply to that
post. How can I do this?
You need to post the same message into the forum for each group. There is currently no way to do this in one go
if you want students to be able to reply to your post. If you don't mind students not being able to reply, then you
can of course just post the message to all participants.

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